Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

But why make her so utterally terrible and unpleasant to be around why build an entier expanstion around an outright bad character it's just not fun I paid money for this it should be good not outright bad

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IMO she comes off as a naive bubbly teen girl. While that IS extremely annoying in itself, it's part of her "growing up" and being "cultivated" into being a good ruler. If you start out as a hero, there's really no room to grow. This expansion sets up the story for the new arc. Of course new characters, especially ones that may grow to become great allies later on, are going to be annoying and cringe. I absolutely hated Nanamo when she was first introduced. Couldn't stand any of the 3 major cities' main characters. They were all cringe and annoying, especially Kan-E-Senna and they were even worse in 1.0. BUT over the course of the story their characters (mostly) grew into decent and likable.

So yeah just think of Lamat as an annoying, naive, teenage girl that hasn't had life kick her in the teeth yet and that leaves a lot of hope for future growth

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Is Wuk even in the trailer?

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No.

What IS in the trailer:

- Y'shtola being nerdy about local architecture/artifacts
- Estinien being socially awkward
- Thancred hunting for treasure
- G'raha eats a taco

None of this is in the game (so far, after 3rd dungeon now). I really wish THIS had been the expansion. I actually feel cheated.

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Originally Posted by Dubont

IMO she comes off as a naive bubbly teen girl. While that IS extremely annoying in itself, it's part of her "growing up" and being "cultivated" into being a good ruler. If you start out as a hero, there's really no room to grow. This expansion sets up the story for the new arc. Of course new characters, especially ones that may grow to become great allies later on, are going to be annoying and cringe. I absolutely hated Nanamo when she was first introduced. Couldn't stand any of the 3 major cities' main characters. They were all cringe and annoying, especially Kan-E-Senna and they were even worse in 1.0. BUT over the course of the story their characters (mostly) grew into decent and likable.

So yeah just think of Lamat as an annoying, naive, teenage girl that hasn't had life kick her in the teeth yet and that leaves a lot of hope for future growth

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Sorry that's just terrible writting and the expample of the other rulers doesn't apply as we don't spend the enitertity of story arcs with them.

Making a character be annoying who's the focus of a plot is just bad writing making the player suffer through a frustrating character is just bad writing why make the character annoying they should be likeable I should like spending time with her, not skip scenes as just don't want to engage with them

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Originally Posted by SongOfTheWind

It makes it so much more ironic how they chose Erenvile, WoL and G’raha of all people for 3 buildings promo in LA

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It's almost as if they knew those were the characters people would love to see involved in the MSQ the most (WoL of course being a stand-in for our character).

Funny how they barley get any time on the screen, even Erenville is somehow only along for the ride and only gets a few moments quite late in the story where he shines a little. Just a little bit tho. A little...itty bitty tiny bit.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

Bro, are you listening to yourself right now? Never before has an expansion focused on ONE character to the detriment of ALL others. Not HW, not SB, never. This is unprecedented.

If I had known this was going to be "The Lukewarm Adventures of Wut Lamat (and her ever faithful cheer squad - featuring the Warrior of Light from the award winning MMORPG Final Fantasy Online)" I would never have pre-ordered. The CGI teaser trailer frankly feels like false advertisement at this point.

EDIT: You know what? It's NOT her expansion. It is mine. I PAID for it. I should get to have FUN. Not spend the whole time propping up whatever intern they got to write this favorite OC (do not steal). I want off this ride.

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You're perfectly free to feel that way, but I must disagree with you. Shadowbringers was so focused on baby Minfilia that it was painful. 1.0 was so focused on NOTHING that it was painful. ARR tried to bring too much light to too many characters at once. HW was absolutely focused on Estinien. Stormblood was better but the Zenos fixation was ridiculous. Endwalker was the only real expansion where the WoL was THE character.

If you hadn't been around for 6 years, I would almost think you wanted a single player game like Ghost of Tsushima or something where you are in fact the only important person in the game.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Is Wuk even in the trailer?

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yes actually she is in the trailer

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Originally Posted by Tethan

No.

What IS in the trailer:

- Y'shtola being nerdy about local architecture/artifacts
- Estinien being socially awkward
- Thancred hunting for treasure
- G'raha eats a taco

None of this is in the game (so far, after 3rd dungeon now). I really wish THIS had been the expansion. I actually feel cheated.

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Wrong. Lamat is 100% in the trailer

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Sorry that's just terrible writting and the expample of the other rulers doesn't apply as we don't spend the enitertity of story arcs with them.

Making a character be annoying who's the focus of a plot is just bad writing making the player suffer through a frustrating character is just bad writing why make the character annoying they should be likeable I should like spending time with her, not skip scenes as just don't want to engage with them

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How is it bad writing? Character growth is a thing. I'd honestly be interested in how many best selling books you've read if you think character growth where some of the best characters are annoying the first book or chapter is "bad writing." I'd also like to see examples of your published works lol. Might as well be full petty if we're going there, yeah?

Honestly you could make a million of these images in a few seconds.

https://ibb.co/gJBY2mS
https://ibb.co/ft5JRWz

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Originally Posted by Dubont

How is it bad writing? Character growth is a thing. I'd honestly be interested in how many best selling books you've read if you think character growth where some of the best characters are annoying the first book or chapter is "bad writing." I'd also like to see examples of your published works lol. Might as well be full petty if we're going there, yeah?

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I took a moment to ponder this, and think of a somewhat annoying MC from a book I enjoy. Do you know why Bilbo, who's insufferable, works as a character in his short story? Because he's thrust into non-stop fantastical action where he must take initiative. Literally a few dozen pages in, and he's using his wits to outsmart the trolls before they cook the dwarves alive.
There's the two differences I find comparing it to DT- Bilbo, while a bit of a twat, is a very quick thinker and surprisingly resourceful, and has a silver tongue. He will use honeyed words to buy time or squirm out of a situation, while MacGuyvering his way into a solution by cobbling something together with what he has at hand. He has strong points and redeemable qualities, and while he's annoyingly opposing adventure, he's extremely useful to his party from the get-go, and this is shown in a short but high-stakes action sequence.

I think this analogy is pretty good, because the WoL is kinda a Gandalf analogue. Yes, Gandalf can solve 99% of issues thrown Bilbo's way, but he doesn't want to. He trusts in his abilities and believes he can grow to be adventurous (which is why he picked him for that task to begin with).

Not a book, but this is also true of Luke, who's also a bit of a twat at the start of A New Hope. He's a skilled pilot, athletic and, ofc, strong with the Force.

I am curious about your recommendation on a book where the character is an irredeemable idiot, with no true skills, who just yaps around for the first 100 pages with 0 action though.

(edit: the more I dwell on it, the more I see this DT as a reverse The Hobit, where Gandalf solves everything, Bilbo has no redeeming qualities at all and just takes all the credit and somehow ends up as a ruler of a nation)

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Originally Posted by Dubont

How is it bad writing? Character growth is a thing. I'd honestly be interested in how many best selling books you've read if you think character growth where some of the best characters are annoying the first book or chapter is "bad writing." I'd also like to see examples of your published works lol. Might as well be full petty if we're going there, yeah?

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If a character is outright annoying and unpleastant like Wuk is I'd likely stop reading. Making a character outright boring and uncompelling is bad writing. Growth is good but the characeter who IS THE STORY needs to be compeling making the viewer site through hours of them being annoying and obnocixoous for the hope of growth is terrible writing

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Honestly you could make a million of these images in a few seconds.

https://ibb.co/gJBY2mS
https://ibb.co/ft5JRWz

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New to the game? Talk quests are the core of the game and have been since 2010

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Originally Posted by Dubont

New to the game? Talk quests are the core of the game and have been since 2010

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I dunno man, maybe we're in 2024 and the game could use an update to its questing and gameplay.
They've had over a decade to figure this out.
People can look the other way when they're emotionally invested in the core narrative, but that's a matter of tolerating the bad for the good.
DT stripped away 90% of the good and we're just left with the bad.
Should we forgive outdated game design just because it's been done for 10 years?

I wouldn't place all the blame on Wuk Lamat. Koana apparently thinks that the best way to learn a recipe is not to just ask for it, but to watch what people do generally speaking and guess from that. The "smart" one is not so much.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

I took a moment to ponder this, and think of a somewhat annoying MC from a book I enjoy. Do you know why Bilbo, who's insufferable, works as a character in his short story? Because he's thrust into non-stop fantastical action where he must take initiative. Literally a few dozen pages in, and he's using his wits to outsmart the trolls before they cook the dwarves alive.
There's the two differences I find comparing it to DT- Bilbo, while a bit of a twat, is a very quick thinker and surprisingly resourceful, and has a silver tongue. He will use honeyed words to buy time or squirm out of a situation, while MacGuyvering his way into a solution by cobbling something together with what he has at hand. He has strong points and redeemable qualities, and while he's annoyingly opposing adventure, he's extremely useful to his party from the get-go, and this is shown in a short but high-stakes action sequence.

I think this analogy is pretty good, because the WoL is kinda a Gandalf analogue. Yes, Gandalf can solve 99% of issues thrown Bilbo's way, but he doesn't want to. He trusts in his abilities and believes he can grow to be adventurous (which is why he picked him for that task to begin with).

Not a book, but this is also true of Luke, who's also a bit of a twat at the start of A New Hope. He's a skilled pilot, athletic and, ofc, strong with the Force.

I am curious about your recommendation on a book where the character is an irredeemable idiot, with no true skills, who just yaps around for the first 100 pages with 0 action though.

(edit: the more I dwell on it, the more I see this DT as a reverse The Hobit, where Gandalf solves everything, Bilbo has no redeeming qualities at all and just takes all the credit and somehow ends up as a ruler of a nation)

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I do like the characters you picked. I was thinking Mat from Wheel of Time. First book? Complete idiot, but clearly agile. Third book? He starts showing real fighting skill. By the end of the series he was my favorite character.

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Originally Posted by Dubont

How is it bad writing? Character growth is a thing. I'd honestly be interested in how many best selling books you've read if you think character growth where some of the best characters are annoying the first book or chapter is "bad writing." I'd also like to see examples of your published works lol. Might as well be full petty if we're going there, yeah?

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Please.....

In either this thread or another thread I've already mentioned Luke Skywalker and Cerys from Witcher 3.

If you want me to really just flip your argument around, look up the anime Seirei no Moribito. It's about a warrior who has to look after and mentor a royal prince, heir to the throne, while on the run from assassins. Now the prince in that anime is a LITERAL CHILD. That CHILD is not as annoying as Wuk Lamat and is smarter than her.

Good anime by the way so go watch it.

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

I wouldn't place all the blame on Wuk Lamat. Koana apparently thinks that the best way to learn a recipe is not to just ask for it, but to watch what people do generally speaking and guess from that. The "smart" one is not so much.

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Yeah we learn after that the locals were forbidden to directly help, but... we weren't told that before our team decided to go the roundabout way. Kind of weird. Honestly feels like a line was cut or something.

She's terrible... to the point that I actually play the game with my own music playing in the background so I don't have to hear her. Her VA must be a nepotism hire or something, there is no way any legit casting director would think this is good.

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Originally Posted by Dubont

New to the game? Talk quests are the core of the game and have been since 2010

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New to the internet and basic human conversation? You have a bunch of people telling you they dont like how much Wuk Lamat is the focus and you're trying to argue they aree "wrong" about their opinions, you're just being annoying. You arent going to change the fact theres a ton of people who dont like her.

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Originally Posted by CosmoBabylonia

Please.....

In either this thread or another thread I've already mentioned Luke Skywalker and Cerys from Witcher 3.

If you want me to really just flip your argument around, look up the anime Seirei no Moribito. It's about a warrior who has to look after and mentor a royal prince, heir to the throne, while on the run from assassins. Now the prince in that anime is a LITERAL CHILD. That CHILD is not as annoying as Wuk Lamat and is smarter than her.

Good anime by the way so go watch it.

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Moribito is such a good anime.

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Originally Posted by Dubont

I do like the characters you picked. I was thinking Matthew from Wheel of Time. First book? Complete idiot, but clearly agile. Third book? He starts showing real fighting skill. By the end of the series he was my favorite character.

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Sorry but I have to do this it's Matrim Cauthon not Matthew....

pray speak with wuk lamat again

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

pray speak with wuk lamat again

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If they are going to have her join the scions, might as well move her to the Waking Sands.

Seasick joke being told once was funny. The third time its told it made you roll your eyes.

Gullible character at first caused you to feel empathy, 4 hrs in after that and it still happens makes you want to press escape and skip cutscene.

Sad but true. I want to like this msq, I really do, after all I spent 40 usd and I want to enjoy the story to the fullest extent. But I couldnt.

From ARR to EW I have never skipped msq cutscene as slow as some of them were. But this time.. I couldnt help it. Because most cutscenes in DT are like this, you just read what the characters says in the first 2-3 sentences to know the essence of entire cutscenes then you can skip. Save for a few important, long ones. Like that trading pels cutscenes... there is no important information in them at all and there is no input required from you. Its just a fetch quest disguised as something else.

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Originally Posted by CosmoBabylonia

If they are going to have her join the scions, might as well move her to the Waking Sands.

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I'd legit never play the game again. I say that as a fan since HW. I'd take Asahi joining the Scions over her. At least that'd be funny.

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

New to the internet and basic human conversation? You have a bunch of people telling you they dont like how much Wuk Lamat is the focus and you're trying to argue they aree "wrong" about their opinions, you're just being annoying. You arent going to change the fact theres a ton of people who dont like her.

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Ah you're new to reading comprehension, my apologies. I clearly stated multiple times that I did not like Lamat and I that I also found her annoying, but that there could be very obvious reasons as to why she is annoying. Young, naive, teen. Never had life beat her down. Never had to actually struggle. Never had to BE an adult. I never said anyone's opinion is wrong, but I did say their reasoning is wrong. "The whole expansion sucks because we aren't the focus of the story" is such a wrong thing to say.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

Sorry but I have to do this it's Matrim Cauthon not Matthew....

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XD you're very correct. I typed "Mat," as he's commonly called in the books and it completed the word for me. Didn't even notice. Good catch.

I genuinely do not feel like she really developed over the expansion past gaining self-confidence.

She just endlessly follows/repeats her mantra of "peace and understanding" and everyone else is just around to enable that by dealing with any problems she can't solve herself, to the point where you start questioning how that's gonna pan out once us and the Scions are gone.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I genuinely do not feel like she really developed over the expansion past gaining self-confidence.

She just endlessly follows/repeats her mantra of "peace and understanding" and everyone else is just around to enable that by dealing with any problems she can't solve herself, to the point where you start questioning how that's gonna pan out once us and the Scions are gone.

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Gone? We might be with her for the next 10 years. We might be in that timeline, so knock on all the wood.

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

I wouldn't place all the blame on Wuk Lamat. Koana apparently thinks that the best way to learn a recipe is not to just ask for it, but to watch what people do generally speaking and guess from that. The "smart" one is not so much.

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To be fair they were all forbidden from sharing the recipe directly.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I genuinely do not feel like she really developed over the expansion past gaining self-confidence.

She just endlessly follows/repeats her mantra of "peace and understanding" and everyone else is just around to enable that by dealing with any problems she can't solve herself, to the point where you start questioning how that's gonna pan out once us and the Scions are gone.

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Frankly the whole set up is just stupid. It's not the first time we playing kingmaker but:

- Americ was already a knight-commander and experience stateman.

- Hein is actually an exiled King.

- Lyse while inexperience, was just a member of a council full of elders. Not to mention Rabaun is with her.

- The Crystarium were left with people worked under G'ahara for decades.

- Eulmore is left with an ex-CEO of the largest company.


This is the first time we put someone who has zero leadership experience nor any special talent, oversee a territory that would eclipse any nation prior. The more I think about it, the more this story appears to be targeting middleschooler at the oldest. It's really just a peace and friendship cake with no frosting, filling or even basic topping.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Frankly the whole set up is just stupid. It's not the first time we playing kingmaker but:

- Americ was already a knight-commander and experience stateman.

- Hein is actually an exiled King.

- Lyse while inexperience, was just a member of a council full of elders. Not to mention Rabaun is with her.

- The Crystarium were left with people worked under G'ahara for decades.

- Eulmore is left with an ex-CEO of the largest company.


This is the first time we put someone who has zero leadership experience nor any special talent, oversee a territory that would eclipse any nation prior. The more I think about it, the more this story appears to be targeting middleschooler at the oldest. It's really just a peace and friendship cake with no frosting, filling or even basic topping.

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I see you no liek my supergirl naruto hyperoptimistic princesshokage of the 4th wall breaching during most of the story, and especially during final bosses, how dare you expect seriousness from my new marketting team at nintendo.

https://i.redd.it/5ekre1okzr9d1.png

(Spoilers ahead about the first half of d
Dawntrail)


My main problem with Wuk Lamat is that she's just naive and her mistakes amount to her losing confidence in herself.
When we had this exact arc in Alphinaud already, in ARR he was arrogant and incredibly naive but by the end into the intro of HW he was basically hit wave after wave with how badly he messed up.

He did literally everything wrong because of his naivety and it completely crushed him and even going into HW he held onto that naivety trying to see if he could end the dragonsong war peacefully which he couldn't. We had to see him grow from a naive and arrogant child to a optimistic but grounded young man because he literally suffered from his mistakes.

Due to that Wuk Lamat being mostly upset that she didn't know enough about how the people she's going to rule over instead of actually causing big mistakes due to it. (Outside of her candy rock getting stolen) Kinda just makes me feel like we are seeing Alphinaud HW arc again but with none of the work.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

I could pull the same trick you just did for literally every Final Fantasy game ever released and for every FFXIV (and FFXI) expansion so far. It's incredibly easy to disingenuously oversimplify a story to make it sound worse than it is, and having seen your other posts, disingenuity for the sake of supporting a false point is indeed my probable explanation.

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Except nothing that I said was untrue. It is pure coincidence and the villain's motivations are exactly as I described. I'd love to be proven wrong. You just said anyone that doesn't share your enjoyment of the story is "DISTORTING REALITY" but I'm the disingenuous one? Ok, buddy.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Now, it's obvious to me that some either played a different game from the one I'm playing, or are simply distorting reality for the sake of painting Dawntrail in an undeservedly negative light...

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Hyperbole has never been very suitable to make valid points.

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Hyperbole much? Some people can hold opinions that are different from your own. Shocking, I know.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Frankly the whole set up is just stupid. It's not the first time we playing kingmaker but:

- Americ was already a knight-commander and experience stateman.

- Hein is actually an exiled King.

- Lyse while inexperience, was just a member of a council full of elders. Not to mention Rabaun is with her.

- The Crystarium were left with people worked under G'ahara for decades.

- Eulmore is left with an ex-CEO of the largest company.


This is the first time we put someone who has zero leadership experience nor any special talent, oversee a territory that would eclipse any nation prior. The more I think about it, the more this story appears to be targeting middleschooler at the oldest. It's really just a peace and friendship cake with no frosting, filling or even basic topping.

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So, almost half of the people we have supported (2 out of 5) have no direct experience, while we count the people working under G'raha but don't count Wuk's experience being taught by her father...I fail to see the disparity. Also, what Wuk lacks is confidence, not talent. She has talent, just doesn't believe she does. What she also has is empathy, which is perhaps one of the most important qualities a leader can have and likewise one of the few that can't easily be "learned" over time. Leadership is ultimately about managing people, and Wuk is particularly strong in that area.

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Originally Posted by Powercow

To be fair,

Zoraal does know the Golden City holds immense power to shape reality, as Seraal tells him much earlier. He's also certainly just aware of the potential given the lengths his father went to to seal off the Golden City, and the stories from the giants. So it's not exactly coincidental. Sphene also did say the tech was adapted to war after their agreement, so it's not like the death army was sitting there entirely. We're told many times there was a huge shift in production of war machines, and the 8-man raid was closed off to fuel Zoraal's war efforts. Plus it's been 30 years, that's a long time in a technologically advanced society. As for him doing it because he's evil, we're shown he's got major daddy issues and a severe inferiority complex, which is only exacerbated when our team succeeds after he fails. Plus he has an... admittedly very stupid "peace for everyone by making everyone suffer" view on global politics. I do wish they went into where he got that idea beyond "well Tural was suffering from war, and then Dad stopped it, and now people are happy.. so 'War -> not war -> happiness'!" It's very dumb. They could have spent some time going into it but... they didn't. They might in the future but that doesn't solve the issue now. Then yeah at the end his motivation, probably after 30 years of stewing in his own emotions, shifted to feeling like his father screwed him out of inheritance. Which is a pretty major shift to happen off-screen.

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Good point!

This just raises more questions on why Zoraal of all people would know that! Why does he know about the key? What gave them the idea that there was a spare set of keystones laying around? Why did Zoraal know about shaping reality or what that entailed? If "shaping reality" didn't involve the power to summon a massive sci-fi army from out of nowhere, the villain would have been screwed and the MSQ would be over.

See, but I was hoping they would explain WHY he has daddy issues and an inferiority complex. In the same way I was expecting them to explain why he thinks causing war will lead to greater peace. They never explain why. He's just evil for the sake of it, and he's not anywhere close to being compelling about it like Zenos was.

I respect your points, but I still can't fathom the reasoning behind these writing choices.

I'm all for having a "vacation" and "low stakes" adventure. But it didn't have to be paired with what essentially feels like an entire expansion of babysitting a wannabe leader who's never led before and enduring the story from essentially their perspective. Aymeric, Hien, Lyse, were in our stories. Doing their own thing, alongside our own thing. Your character will literally just sit back and watch Wuk do all the hard work. Literally. She also doesn't have any real weaknesses outside of a jokey seasickness gag. Compare that to her brother, who is strong in one area and weak in an area she fills in. With the limited screentime he gets compared to his sister and he is far more interesting despite wearing a very ugly and not very pleasing outfit.

It doesn't really help that our team is heavily lopsided with characters that work better with different character types yet are horrible with who they are currently stuck with. The twins are great, but not when they are the most "seasoned" of the group. They work far better when they have an Estinien, Thancred, or Y'shtola type to be paired up with. Krile would have been good, if the story was more about her trying to prove herself and not getting overshadowed by yet another person also trying to prove themselves. And then we have Wuk, who's biggest claim to her birthrate is the fact she lucked out and got the WoL on her team.

It just feels like me and Erenville are just here babysitting for ten levels of MSQ. Something that could have been great in a raid sidestory, or a postgame single patch story arc. But having this stretched out for so long... not very wise. People can say whatever they want about Lyse, but I didn't really dislike her much at all. She was surrounded by a better balance of other characters in a more interesting story. Maybe it made it easier for me to swallow who knows.

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Originally Posted by SirShady

Except nothing that I said was untrue. It is pure coincidence and the villain's motivations are exactly as I described. I'd love to be proven wrong.

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What is your definition of coincidence? Because

Zoraal Ja isn't just guessing at where he can go get a massive amount of power and show up his father, he explicitly knows the Golden City can give him what he seeks. It's established very early on that there's a great power there. The evil vizier whispering in his ear made sure to mention it to him. It's also established that the great power isn't the giant death army, that was constructed after Sphene gave him control. Sure they had a handful of robots to act as servants and whanot, but the over-militarization of Alexandria came after. Multiple civilians in Solution Nine mention it. It's also been thirty years, and for a society that advanced, thirty years is plenty of time to manufacture a large army.

And his motivation isn't EEEeeEEeEEVILLL. It's that he's been under an immense amount of pressure since he was a baby, with massive expectations put upon him, and he's failed to live up to them. Unlike Bakool Ja Ja, though, he can't accept that he failed. So he goes further and further along a path to show that not only can he be as great as his father, but he can exceed him. He also feels like his father screwed him out of his legacy by favoring Wuk and Koana, thus he has a personal grudge against them. Especially Wuk since she actually succeeded where he could not. His biggest flaw was pride.

The only real issue I found with his character is his original motivation to go to war -- to unite the world in suffering so all people will work together is... a very dumb ideal that makes no real sense. I wish they'd have taken some of the "Wuk Lamat gets motion sickness again!" cutscenes and explored that a bit.

Edit - Oh you found my other post!

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Originally Posted by SirShady

Good point!

This just raises more questions on why Zoraal of all people would know that! Why does he know about the key? What gave them the idea that there was a spare set of keystones laying around? Why did Zoraal know about shaping reality or what that entailed? If "shaping reality" didn't involve the power to summon a massive sci-fi army from out of nowhere, the villain would have been screwed and the MSQ would be over.

See, but I was hoping they would explain WHY he has daddy issues and an inferiority complex. In the same way I was expecting them to explain why he thinks causing war will lead to greater peace. They never explain why. He's just evil for the sake of it, and he's not anywhere close to being compelling about it like Zenos was.

I respect your points, but I still can't fathom the reasoning behind these writing choices.

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The reason he knows so much is because

Sareel Ja was one of Gulool Ja's advisors, and he mentions very early on that he's eavesdropped (at some point in the past) on Gulool's closest advisors and knows things. Our Roegadyn explorer friend is one of Gulool's closest friends, so it's likely it was mentioned at some point. Lucky? Maybe, but it's not unreasonably so, and this plan sounds like it was long in the making. The only thing Sareel didn't count on was the sheer expedience in which Zoraal would dispose of the useless tool. And in Zoraal's defense, he's too smart to know that Sareel wasn't going to pull something; removing him early is definitely the correct move.

As for specifically reshaping reality, I think he was just being poetic there. Zoraal actually has no desire to shape reality or merge worlds or whatever, so he was likely just being grandiose in his moment of triumph. Dude knew there was some kind of power there, and he wanted it. His robot army can't literally reshape reality, but it can allow him to metaphorically do so by conquering the world.

And yeah I think a big part of the reason Zoraal's motivation is so meh and Zenos' is better is because we had so much more time with him. He's introduced in early Stormblood, pops up from time to time in Shadowbringers, and is all over Endwalker. Zoraal shows up for a fraction of that time, so it just fell flat.

Suggestion: They should add an auto-play mode for MSQ. That way, I can let my character automatically go through the MSQ and watch on a second monitor. It can work until required combat encounters like dungeons.